Starvation diet.

• Author: Bailey, Ronald
• Position: Castro's weight loss plan - Brief article

IN SICKO, the left-liberal documentarian Michael Moore praised the Cuban health care system. But he failed to cite one of Cuban socialism's true health triumphs: the reduction of heart disease and diabetes during the 1990s. In September researchers at Johns Hopkins University published a study in the American Journal of Epidemiology that found that the Cuban economic collapse occasioned by the withdrawal of massive Soviet subsidies between 1989 and 2000 helped the Cuban people slenderize.

The study found that the crisis reduced per capita daily energy intake from 2,900 calories to 1,900 calories. Another benefit of a collapsed economy: Cubans had to walk more and do more physical labor. Deaths due to diabetes and heart disease dropped by half and a third, respectively.

North Koreans may have benefited from a similarly rigorous communist diet and exercise plan. In September, having just returned from a trip...